As the American Church Crumbles, Is Humanism Ready to Step In?

This speaker participated in our 2018 Conference. Learn more about our 2023 conference speakers here.

Sunday, May 20 | 8:00am-9:10am

For all their faults, Christian churches in the U.S. have served as focal points for philanthropy, identity, and human connection. But every demographic indicator suggests that the church will be a shadow of itself in two generations. There are many reasons to applaud that demise, but also reasons for concern: As the malignant structure collapses, it threatens to take the infrastructure of human support down with it. Can the humanistic value of mutual care and responsibility step into the breach?

This workshop charts the ongoing collapse of the US church, the serious philanthropic and social questions that collapse raises, and how humanistic experiments like Foundation Beyond Belief and Sunday Assembly are laying the groundwork for the next stage.

Dale McGowan

Dr. Dale McGowan is the author and editor of books including Parenting Beyond Belief, Atheism for Dummies, Raising Freethinkers, and Sharing Reality: How to Bring Secularism and Science to an Evolving Religious World. After being named 2008 Harvard Humanist of the Year, Dale founded the humanist charity Foundation Beyond Belief, which has raised over $2 million for philanthropic projects worldwide, formed a network of more than 100 humanist volunteer teams in the U.S., and created groundbreaking disaster recovery and international service programs for the nonreligious community.

Dale is now Managing Editor of nonreligious blogs at the interbelief website Patheos and is at work on his next book. He lives in Atlanta.